


anonymous

by zhuzhubi



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Drug Addiction, Gen, POV Outsider, Platonic Relationships, Post-Prison, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Substance Abuse, i guess you can read it as pre-romantic if you want just know its not what i had in mind lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:26:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25789558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zhuzhubi/pseuds/zhuzhubi
Summary: “you make me feel human,” he says one day, sipping on coffee so syrupy-sweet it almost makes you gag(or, you met spencer at a narcotics anonymous meeting 10 years ago and never saw him again. then one day he comes back)
Relationships: Spencer Reid & Reader
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> im on tumblr @zhuzhubii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the revised version - chapter 2 is the original if youre interested

You haven’t seen him in more than ten years - **  
**

_“Hi, my name is Spencer and I - I, um - I’m sorry, I can’t do this,” he says, then stumbles down from the podium and sits again, twisting his hands together either in nervousness or an attempt to hide the tell-tale tremors. It’s the first time you’ve seen him, and you think he’s probably under 24 hours still. But he’s here and he hasn’t left, even though he couldn’t make himself speak (or even admit that he has a problem). He’s trying, so at least there’s that_

\- and he looks just as bad as he did then, but in an entirely different way. He’s clean, you think, or hides it extremely well at the very least (which is almost impossible in a room full of people who know all too well exactly what to look for), but he hasn’t shaved or even made an _attempt_ to untangle his hair. 

The last time he was here -

_at the same time as you, at least - you try to come at least once a month still, but you barely crave anymore and while you know how frighteningly easy it would be for something to trigger you and bring it all back, the threshold for something like that is much, much higher now. It’s easy to let other things take priority over NA meetings. Though if looking at Spencer is any indication, maybe you shouldn’t let them_

\- was the day he got thirty days, after (as far as you’re aware) two false starts - including that day you first saw him. You were at two years, three months, and five days - even now, you haven’t been able to stop yourself from meticulously keeping count. 

He stuck with you for some reason although you never spoke to him. In fact, that stilted introduction was the only time you ever heard him speak - he talked with the meeting leader a few times you’re pretty sure, but never took the podium again after that. You don’t know anything about him, not even his drug of choice, and perhaps that’s why you still remember him despite how many faces you’ve seen pass through these meetings through the years. 

You imagined a million possible lives for him - he relapsed and was too ashamed to come back, perhaps. Maybe he just gave up on recovery all together. Maybe he found a different group and it stuck the _third fourth fifth_ time. Maybe his family and friends staged an intervention and forced him into rehab, or he decided the 12-step wasn’t for him and went at it alone. 

Maybe he succeeded, maybe he didn’t. To be honest, you were afraid he’d overestimated his tolerance and OD’ed -

 _your poison came in pill form, and you were always_ obsessive _about counting, sometimes even more so than about actually taking the drugs - you know now that it’s because having a (false) sense of ‘control’ like that allowed you to tell yourself_ it’s not that bad, I know exactly how much I’m taking and exactly when. And yes - I’m taking way more than the maximum prescribed dose, but it’s the same idea is it not?

_You never overdosed yourself, but you’ve seen it happen to too many of the others. Seen it take too many lives._

_You could tell from the way Spencer pulled at his sleeves and dug his fingernails into the crooks of his elbows that his poison was going straight to the vein and it worried you - all too easy to accidentally draw back too much, especially with hands shaking like his were, eyes exhausted like his were. Overdose is something you’re afraid of every time a newbie leaves and doesn’t come back_

\- he’s here, and he definitely doesn’t look like he’s been using all these years, even if he does look pretty terrible right now. He surprises you by volunteering to be the first one to speak - he’s a very different man than he was ten years ago, though perhaps that shouldn’t surprise you as much as it does.

He admits it this time, “Hi my name is Spencer, and I’m an addict. I, um, I came to this meeting a decade ago - it was actually the first group I came to, you know, when I first realized I had lost control, that I needed to stop. I was still counting hours the first time. I ended up making it to thirty-three days, and then my friend - um, he…

A-anyway, I was back on the drugs - Dilaudid - for about a month and a half? And then, one day, my boss pulled me aside and told me he was having us - my coworkers and I - drug tested in three weeks. And I…I _knew_ that I was risking my job by using, that I was coming to work high and creating a hostile work environment by snapping at my coworkers and…

I wished…I almost _wanted_ to get caught because I was tired of them treating me like…like I don’t have feelings too. People always treated me like a robot when I was growing up because I was a child prodigy, I guess - I was used to it, but they were my friends and I thought…I thought it would be different, I thought they would see past me pushing them away and actually do something to help. They…they’re still my friends and they’ve gotten better, but…they still make me feel that way sometimes and maybe…maybe I just have to learn to live with that, I don’t know.

Um, back to what I was saying before…um - I guess, in the back of my mind, I _knew_ that my boss knew I was using. I _knew_ I wasn’t hiding it well, wasn’t really even trying to. But it was different, you know, hearing him say something that I knew meant he couldn’t ignore it anymore, couldn’t _cover_ for me anymore. So I told him, ‘I think I’m coming down with the flu, I’m gonna need some time off,’ and I said it to the floor because I couldn’t look him in the eye, knowing he knew what I really needed it for. But he approved it, and I quit, dumped it all as soon as I got home and suffered through withdrawal alone.

And I struggled with craving - I say that in past tense as if it’s not why I’m here now. There were close calls, times when I got my hands on some, but I never actually physically relapsed after that. I went to meetings - not these ones, obviously - sometimes, or I would show up at my friends places and they’d pretend, for my sake, not to know why I couldn’t be alone. 

About five months ago I was drugged - and I mean like, against my will - with heroin. And…I thought I was past this? I’d barely thought about it for years - even when I had to deal with tough things like my mom getting sick - sicker, I guess. But now it feels like it’s the only thing on my mind, if I’m not actively doing something, I’m thinking about hydromorphone. 

And that’s why I’m here, I guess - because I _hated_ who I was when I was using. I didn’t care about anything but my next hit, and where I was gonna get it, and how I was gonna sneak off to…to _shoot up_. I don’t want to be that man again, but I’m alone when I’m not at work and my friends already did _so much_ for me these past few months, I just…yeah. Thanks for listening.”

He sits again and starts twisting his hands like he did ten years before. You wonder if perhaps it wasn’t to disguise the shaking after all, maybe it’s just a nervous habit of his. Or maybe it _became_ a nervous habit because of the drugs and the need to hide the tells of addiction. 

As some of the others go up to speak, he mostly just stares at the floor, letting his long hair fall into his face and obscure his eyes like some kind of frail shield against the world. He’s listening though, you can tell because he says ‘hello’ to each of the speakers and nods at the appropriate moments - anyhow, he seems like someone who’s always listening, even when it looks like he’s not paying attention. 

You still speak occasionally. You’ve been clean for over twelve years, and while it’s not often that you crave anymore, that time in your life crosses your mind all the time - you’ll talk about dwelling on the things you did while you were using that hurt those around you, or of seemingly innocuous things that remind you of the drugs. You think maybe it’ll help him, so when the last call for speakers is made you rise to your feet.

You don’t say a lot. Of course, there’s the usual introduction. Then you talk about oxycodone and how it felt good at first. But then it became a compulsion, and even when you _knew_ how much it was hurting you, you couldn’t stop. You talk about how you’ve been clean for over twelve years, but you still come to meetings because you’re _so afraid_ of being that person again, of falling back into it. Because you know how frighteningly _easy_ it would be. Because you have kids now, and you never want them to see that side of you.

He lingers after and you know it’s because he doesn’t trust himself alone. You approach him and ask him if he wants to get a coffee even though it’s past nine and it’s already dark outside. He looks relieved and agrees, though first asks, “what about your kids?”

You answer simply, “it’s not my week with them,” and he understands. As you walk to the nearest 24-hour diner, you ask him if he has any. He doesn’t (you can see the longing on his face, but he doesn’t say anything about wanting them - there’s no ‘not yet,’ or ‘maybe one day.’ You wonder if he feels like he doesn’t _deserve_ them anymore).

It becomes a bi-weekly ritual (barring when he gets called away for work), coffee with Spencer on the weeks you don’t have the kids - you don’t always attend the meetings, and after a while neither does he, but you always show up at the diner. He’s reluctant to tell his story at first - he’s worried that it seems unbelievable - but he does eventually, after much reassurance that you’ll take him seriously no matter what.

He was right - his story’s insane, for lack of a better word. But you believe him - it’s so insane he couldn’t _possibly_ have made it all up. You realize that this man is so different from the one you saw a decade ago not because of the years that have passed, but because of three months spent in _federal prison_ (and you only need to look at him, at his wiry frame and gentle eyes - eyes with something dark and haunted hiding behind them - to know _bad things_ happened to him inside, though he still won’t speak about them)

You listen because he’s your friend. You listen because you’re interested in what he has to say - and that goes for everything from quantum physics to networks of mushrooms, not just trauma and substance abuse. Most importantly, you listen because that’s what he needs from you, he needs someone to be his sounding board while he tries to work through things for himself - he’s tired of people telling him what to feel and what _not_ to feel, telling him he needs to talk about it _right now_ instead of waiting until he’s ready. 

“You make me feel human,” he says one day, sipping on coffee so syrupy-sweet it almost makes you gag. 

(It makes you angry, though you don’t show it, because he is so _painfully, imperfectly_ human that you can’t imagine anyone ever seeing him as anything but exactly that)

In many ways he’s very different from how you imagined him, while in others he’s very much the same. You wonder if he recognized you, if he imagined a life for you the same way you did for him. You’re glad to know him beyond your imagination, to know more of his story than just the chapter about addiction because there is _so much_ more to him than that. You’re glad that he’s finally starting to find peace, that he’s trying to put his life back together for the _fourth fifth sixth_ time and succeeding at long last.


	2. Chapter 2

You haven’t seen him in more than ten years -

 _“Hi, my name is Spencer and I - I, um - I’m sorry, I can’t do this,” he says, then stumbles down from the podium and sits again, twisting his hands together in a way you_ know _is to disguise the shaking. It’s the first time you’ve seen him, and you think he’s probably under 24 hours still. But he’s_ here _and he hasn’t left, even though he couldn’t make himself speak (or even admit that he has a problem). He’s trying, at least_

\- and he looks just as bad as he did then, but in an entirely different way. He’s clean, you think, or at least hides it extremely well (which is almost impossible in a room full of people who know all too well _exactly_ what to look for), but he hasn’t shaved or even made an _attempt_ to untangle his hair. 

The last time he was here 

(at the same time as you, at least - you try to come at least once a month still, but you barely crave anymore and while you _know_ how frighteningly easy it would be for something to trigger you and bring it all back, the threshold for something like that is much, _much_ higher now and it’s easy to let other things take priority over NA meetings. Though if looking at Spencer is any indication, maybe they shouldn’t) 

was the day he got thirty days, after two false starts - including that day you first saw him. You were at two years, three months, and five days - even now, you haven’t been able to stop yourself from keeping count. 

He stuck with you for some reason although you never spoke to him. In fact, that stilted introduction was the only time you ever heard him speak - he talked with the meeting leader a few times, but never took the podium again after that. You don’t know anything about him, not even his drug of choice, and perhaps that’s why you still remember him after all these years despite how many faces you’ve seen pass through these meetings. 

You imagined a life for him - he relapsed and was too ashamed to come back, most likely. Maybe he found a different group and it stuck the second time. Maybe his family staged an intervention and forced him into rehab, or he decided the 12-step wasn’t for him and went at it alone. 

To be honest, you were afraid he’d overestimated his tolerance and OD’ed (your poison came in pill form, and you were always meticulous about counting so overdose isn’t something you’ve ever personally experienced. But you could tell from the way he pulled at his sleeves and scratched the crooks of his elbows when he wasn’t paying attention that his poison was going straight to the vein - all too easy to accidentally draw back too much, especially with hands shaking like his were) - it’s something you’re afraid of every time a newbie leaves and doesn’t come back.

But he’s _here_ , and he definitely doesn’t look like he’s been using all these years, even if he does look terrible right now. He surprises you by volunteering to be the first one to speak - he’s a different man than he was nine years ago, though perhaps that shouldn’t surprise you as much as it does.

He admits it this time, “Hi my name is Spencer, and I’m an addict. I, um, I came to this meeting a decade ago - it was actually the first group I came to, you know, when I first realized I needed to stop. I was still counting hours the first time. I ended up making it to thirty-three days, and then my friend - okay, no. I’m not gonna make excuses anymore. 

Anyway, I was back on the drugs - Dilaudid - for about a month and a half? And then, one day, my boss pulled me aside and told me he was having us - my coworkers and I - drug tested in three weeks. I guess, in the back of my mind, I knew that he knew, and - for reasons I won’t get into - felt responsible for my addiction and looked the other way because of that. But it was different, you know, hearing him say something that I knew meant he couldn’t ignore it anymore. 

So I told him, ‘I think I’m coming down with the flu, I’m gonna need some time off,’ and I said it to the floor because I couldn’t look him in the eye, knowing he knew what I really needed it for. But he approved it, and I quit, dumped it all as soon as I got home. 

And I struggled with craving - and I say that in past tense as if it’s not why I’m here now - there were close calls, but I never actually relapsed after that. I went to meetings - not these ones - sometimes, or I would show up at my friends places and they’d pretend, for my sake, not to know why I couldn’t be alone. 

About five months ago I was drugged - and I mean like, hit over the head and held down - with heroin. And...I thought I was past this? I’d barely thought about it for years - even when I had to deal with tough things like my mom getting sick - sicker, I guess. But now it feels like the only thing on my mind, if I’m not actively doing something, I’m thinking about Dilaudid. 

And that’s why I’m here, I guess - because I _hated_ who I was when I was using. I didn’t care about anything but my next hit, and where I was gonna get it, and how I was gonna sneak off to - to shoot up. I don’t want to be that man again, but I’m alone when I’m not at work and my friends already did _so much_ for me these past few months, I just...yeah. Thanks for listening.”

He sits again and starts twisting his hands like he did ten years before. You wonder if perhaps it _wasn’t_ to disguise the shaking after all, maybe it’s just a nervous habit of his. Or maybe it became a nervous habit _because_ of the drugs, and the need to hide his addiction. 

As some of the others go up to speak, he mostly just stares at the floor, letting his long hair fall into his face and obscure his eyes - some kind of shield against the world. He’s listening though, you can tell because he says ‘hello’ to each of the speakers and nods every so often at what they’re saying - anyhow, he seems like someone who’s always listening, even when it looks like he’s not paying attention. 

You still speak occasionally. You’ve been clean for over twelve years, and while it’s not often that you crave anymore, things remind you of that time in your life - you’ll talk about being reminded of things you did while you were using that hurt those around you, or of seemingly innocuous things that remind you of the drugs. You think maybe it’ll help him, so when the last call for speakers is made you rise to your feet.

You don’t say a lot. Of course, there’s the usual introduction. Then you talk about oxycodone, and how it felt good at first. But then it became a compulsion, and even when you _knew_ how much it was hurting you, you couldn’t stop. You talk about how you’ve been clean for over twelve years, but you still come to meetings because you’re _so afraid_ of being that person again, of falling back into it. Because you know how easy it would be. Because you have kids now, and you never want them to see that side of you.

He lingers, after - you know it’s because he doesn’t trust himself alone. You approach him and ask him if he wants to get a coffee, even though it’s 9pm. He looks relieved and agrees, though first asks, “what about your kids?”

You answer simply, “it’s not my week with them,” and he understands. As you walk to the nearest 24-hour diner, you ask him if he has any. He doesn’t (you can see the longing on his face, but he doesn’t say anything about wanting them - there’s no ‘not yet,’ or ‘maybe one day.’ You wonder if he feels like he doesn’t deserve them anymore).

It becomes a bi-weekly ritual (barring when he gets called away for work), on the weeks you don’t have the kids - you don’t always attend the meetings, and after a while neither does he, but you always show up at the diner. He’s reluctant to tell his story at first, worried that it seems unbelievable, but he does eventually, after much reassurance that you’ll take him seriously. 

He was right, his story’s insane. But you believe him - it’s so insane he couldn’t have possibly made it all up. You realize this man is so different from the one you saw a decade ago not because of the years that have passed, but because of three months spent in federal prison (and you only need to look at him, at his wiry frame and gentle eyes (and how haunted they are), to know that bad things happened to him inside - though he won’t speak about them). 

He gets better, over the years, though there are setbacks. He misses one of your late-night diner meetings, and when he returns he tells you he got kidnapped again, that he almost got sacrificed by a cult. Not even a year later, one of his best friends confessed her love for him while they were being held at gunpoint, and it made him question his feelings for her even though he knew it would never work out 

(in the end, he realized he really does just think of her as a friend - as a sister, really)

Then, one day, he shows up and won’t stop talking about ‘Max,’ and how _nice_ , and _interesting_ , and _fun_ , and _intelligent_ she is, and you smile. You’re not surprised when he tells you he’s going to ask her to marry him, or when she says yes, or when he starts worrying about ‘advanced maternal age’ and the higher risk of complications. 

Once his daughter is born, he doesn’t have as much time for you and the diner anymore - the meetings drop off to ‘whenever we get the chance,’ though never stop completely. 

(In many ways he’s very different from how you imagined him, while in others he’s very much the same. You think at some point he recognized you, realized where he’d seen you before. Or maybe he knew it all along, and that’s why he agreed in the first place. You’re glad to know the rest of his story, not just the part about the addiction, and you’re glad to know he’s found happiness)


End file.
